Computer applications (“application servers”) commonly require input data to be manipulated prior to additional processing. The manipulation requirements are often dynamic. For example, manipulation requirements for a telephone service provider's software applications may change based on changed customer service availability, newly available or no longer available customer services, the number of customer requests in a given period, the acceptable times for requests, or the version of the software running.
In today's networked environment, application servers run a variety of different software protocols (e.g., J2EE Containers with CORBA orbs, J2EE Containers with RMI) and typically require a number of different data manipulations before performing other functions. As a result, a need exists for an application server that can dynamically maintain, process and efficiently run manipulations for a plurality of clients running different software protocols simultaneously. A further need exists for solving the common business problem of continually needing to translate, manipulate, or to otherwise conform data that is input by a user or used by an application, prior to further processing or storing of the data, with dynamically maintainable manipulation functions.
Further, because data manipulation requirements often change, a need exists for a manipulation application server that can perform the manipulations run on specific fields of client manipulation requests without requiring extensive changes in software. Most computer software applications use configuration variables to alter its behavior without the need for regenerating code. This is most often done using text files. In today's Internet and networked environments this can cause administrative problems. This is largely because the same software application may be running on several machines, in several locations. Thus, in order to alter uniformly the behavior of all software applications, or clients, all files need to be accessible by the text files. This can cause great expense and significant administration problems. For one thing, security considerations often dictate that a text file employed to alter a software application must be on the same machine that is running the code. Therefore, the configuration file often must be replicated over several machines. If changes are made on one software application, they must also be made on all of the other applications. Errors can occur if the changes are not made consistently on all of the applications. Accordingly, a further need exists for an application server that will allow application server administrators to update the various manipulations done on fields of data without a new release of code.